Five-time world champion and London Olympics bronze-winner Mary Kom has been denied a wild card entry into the Rio Olympics. After she was knocked out in the qualifying rounds, the Indian Olympic Association attempted to secure her an alternative entry into the games to be held in Brazil this year, but the International Olympic Committee ruled otherwise.

The regulations dictate that a wild card entry cannot be accorded to a country which has sent more than eight participants in a sport in the last two games. As India sent in eight boxers in the 2012 London games, one of them being Kom herself, she was required to withdraw from availing the wild card this time.

Meanwhile the pugilist from Manipur, who hoped for these games to be her swan song, told the PTI, “...I have to accept this decision but I am not quitting the sport right now. I will continue to compete till I am feeling fit and for the time being I think I am fit."

The 33-year-old became the first Indian woman to win a boxing medal when she clinched bronze in the 2012 London Games.

The Twitterati, meanwhile, have been saddened at the news and enraged that Priyanka Chopra, who played the boxer in the 2014 biopic on Mary Kom, is yet to come out in support for the sportsperson.